Huddie Lead Belly Ledbetter at the Village Vanguard, jazz and folk club in Greenwich Village

Huddie Lead Belly Ledbetter, 1889 - 1949, a photo by trudeau on Flickr.

In a Wall St Journal interview Lorraine Gordon, longtime owner of the Village Vanguard jazz and folk club, recalls that one of the first occasions she was legally allowed to hear a set all the way through at the Vanguard was when she was 17 and Leadbelly was performing.

"Oh my, I was so crazy about Leadbelly. I sat right back there," she says, indicating a table near the back of the room, "and Leadbelly came and sat with me. I wanted to draw him. My God. That fantastic head, that face, that white hair, those cheekbones. At that time I was trying to be an artist. I had art ambitions because I could draw. I sat there at that table with him; I probably just stared at him."